Although long-term exposure to asbestos is usually cited as the cause of asbestos-related illnesses, Louisiana’s Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled that a claimant’s five-day exposure to the toxin could have been significant to his development of asbestosis.
Mr. Edward Alberes alleged that he was exposed to asbestos throughout his half-century of employment, but the lawsuit against Goodrich involved a five-day stint he worked as a pipefitter for the defendant, at which time he claimed to have been exposed to asbestos through contact with asbestos-containing gaskets manufactured by Garlock Sealing Technologies.
Prior to the appeals court’s decision, a trial court granted Goodrich summary judgment, agreeing with the company’s assessment that the plaintiff’s exposure was “inconsequential in the scope of a life-long career employed as a laborer, pipefitter helper, and crane operator.”
However, following the plaintiff’s appeal, testimonies from industry experts pointed to the concentration of the toxin at the time of exposure, supporting Mr. Alberes’s claim that the five-day period could have been sufficient to contribute to his development of the disease.
Goodrich argued that “the law allows for defendants with relatively minimal exposures in these cases to be dismissed,” which, while not necessarily untrue, was not backed up by case law, leading the appeals court to reverse the trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment to Goodrich.
“Given that the substantial contributing factor test in asbestos-related cases focuses on the quality of exposure versus the duration of exposure, granting summary judgment on these grounds was in error,” wrote Judge Terri F. Love in the court’s opinion.
Asbestos exposure can lead to serious, often fatal, respiratory health problems, such as mesothelioma, a type of cancer with an extremely high mortality rate. Although asbestos has been banned since the 1970s, there are still thousands of individuals diagnosed with asbestos-related illnesses each year.
Powered by WPeMatico